No 1240: November 14, 2012eNews is a weekly electronic newsletter
sent to all GP practices (with email addresses) within the NEV catchment. The
aim is to provide up to date information relevant to GPs and to disseminate the
latest activities and resources from the division. All feedback and enquiries
welcome and should be addressed to Patty Marshall.
You can also visit our website at: http://www.nevdgp.org.au/.
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A Word from the Editor

NPS program

We would like to remind you that the Division’s NPS program
is continuing, business as usual, under the leadership of Dr Mary Levidiotis.
Currently bookings are being taken for both the current topic (antibiotics) and
the early 2013 topic (diabetes). See under NPS.

Division Annual General Meeting – next week

The division’s 20th AGM will be held at John
Scott Meeting House on Wednesday November 21. Apart from
the formalities the evening will have a light hearted and educational aspect to
it and members are urged to attend. Please call the division on 9496 4333 to
RSVP.

New eNews Section

A new addition called Have Your Say where we
invite comments, hints etc from the members.

Australian Doctor Articles

Management of results

Most practices and GPs do have clear procedures in place to notify
patients of “clinically significant” test results (Urgent and Discuss) but the
procedures are not always electronic. Also critical are the follow up
processes. Do you know if the patient visited the specialist as referred? Did
the patient present for further tests? It is in these circumstances that the
recall system needs to become part of the investigations management system to
ensure that there is, where necessary, follow-up of “clinically significant”
results.

And the doctors too should have a consistent and clear definition of
what is meant by “No Action”, “Discuss” and “Urgent”. It is also important that
the doctors also use “Mark as notified” after discussing the result with the
patient.

Although this article was written in February 2008 it is still relevant
today but note that MD 3.14a has changed the way results are managed – see
under Information Management in todayseNews.
Full
article

Chronic Disease Management

Supermarket Tours

Diabetes Australia – Vic organises supermarket tours to help make shopping for food
easier. As part of the two hour tour, local dietitians show you how to
accurately read and understand food labels, select healthy food alternatives
and identify products that are appropriate for people with diabetes.
Participants will receive a show bag with the Diabetes Australia Healthy
Shopping Guide, information sheets and other useful information. A tour is
taking place at Woolworths 33 Hutchinson Street

Lilydale on Thursday 29
November 2012. Cost: $10 members and $15 for non-members. Limited bookings
are available for each tour. To confirm time/date and to make
a booking, contact the Diabetes Info and Advice Line (DIAL) on 1300 136 588.

Have Your Say

This is a new addition to the eNews
where we invite comments, hints etc from the members
each week with the best being published.

“There are two very
important AGMs coming up - the NEVDGP AGM on 21/11 & the Northern Melbourne
Medicare Local AGM on 29/11. I would urge everyone to attend both. We all have
a vote at the NEVDGP, but GP applications for membership of NMML have not been
accepted/processed prior to their AGM. This is hard to understand. We were all
invited to apply & have been sent their regular newsletters all year, asked
to complete a survey about After Hours care in our region & many have been
visited by their CEO & encouraged to be involved. Our clinic was approached
yesterday to provide de-identified patient data to NMML in a phone call. This
seems odd, as we are not members. There has been nothing in writing about how
the data would be used, so for now we have decided to decline the “mining” of
our data using the PEN tool. What do others think?” Dr Debbie Moors, Wingrove Clinic.

2.Correspondence Management with Medical
DirectorThis guide is an overview of changes made in Medical Director using
examples of real workflow scenarios.(Link)

Remember too that the
division has made available an additional help booklet, thanks to Ian McKnight
from the Tasmanian Medicare Local – you can also download this by clicking here.

Medical Director Tip - Changes to the Holding File – Column headings

There are now many
different ways you can fine tune the display of results:

·Using
the downward arrows you can narrow down or filter the displayed results by;
Date Collected, Document Type, Document Source or any other category related to
the column heading.

·Clicking
on the column headings will sort the displayed documents in alternately
ascending or descending order. e.g. Clicking on the
Patient column heading will sort the documents in Patient surname order.
Similarly clicking on the Date Collected column will sort the documents in
chronological order.

·By
clicking and dragging from right to left, or left to right, you can change the
order the columns appear in on your screen.

·By
clicking and dragging on the Column Heading edges you can resize the columns to
accommodate your preference, and screen size/resolution

This week’s IM problem - How do I mark results as “Notified”

Question: With the change in MD
3.14a how do the GPs mark results as “Notified”?

Answer: There are 2 ways of doing
this:

1.When
viewing the result in Preview mode in the patient’s file there is a “Notified”
button at the bottom of the screen (or a “De-notified” button if the result has
already been “Notified”).

2.From
the Main screen select Correspondence>
Actioned Items and you will see the
“Notified” button at the bottom of the screen.

3.From
the Main screen select Correspondence>
Actioned Items and make a selection
of what you want to print. By selecting Print
List from the top of the screen you will be prompted to Mark as notified.

News for Practice Staff

Latest newsletters

National
Prescribing Service

Programs

The current visiting program is on ‘Antibiotic resistance
and respiratory tract infections’ and will be completing end December 2012. The
scheduled program in the first half of 2013 is titled ‘Type 2 diabetes:
priorities and targets’. Practice visits and case study meetings are available
for both topics. If you would like to organise a visit at your practice or to
discuss any matters regarding the NPS program in our region please call the
Division on 9496 433 or contact Dr Mary
Levidiotis directly on mary@nevdgp.org.au or on 0407 631 918.

Antibiotic Awareness Week

The Antibiotic Awareness campaign that has been discussed
with many of you at NPS practice visits in recent times started globally
(including Australia) this week.

You can find information about Antibiotic Awareness Week in
Australia and also in Europe, US and Canada following this link.
You can also obtain additional information and resources from this link.

GPs can
become antibiotic resistance fighters by taking part in the online Clinical
e-Audit, Management of Specific Respiratory Tract Infections. Registration and
more info is available here.

Women’s Health

Let's talk about Menopause

ThinkGP, in collaboration with Jean Hailes, have
produced education on the assessment of the perimenopausal
woman, the risks associated with the menopause and the appropriate screening in
this age group.

Hormone replacement therapy is explored and
the advantages and disadvantages of this are considered. Click on Let's
talk about menopause to start this free 1 hour education module.